The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle

tergiversations

The revered senior rabbi of the reform Temple Israel, Joseph Narot, who’d been a champion of black civil rights and a strong opponent of the war in Vietnam, spoke in favor of the amendment: “If God is love, then let it be the love for all mankind,” he said.

“Only family are allowed in. You need to find her next of kin,” was the answer. Strong and Fleming had had a commitment ceremony, officiated by Fleming’s progressive aunt, who’d been a nun for sixteen years. But a commitment ceremony had no legal standing.

no one gay leader of the past has been widely chronicled as having had the most foresight, the most spirited plans, and the most critical triumphs, without which contemporary LGBT people couldn’t have won their own decisive civil rights victories. But if any one person deserves such credit, it is Frank Kameny.

If anyone missed the meaning of the oblong object that covered the house, the message printed on it informed them what it was: “A Condom to Stop Unsafe Politics: Helms Is Deadlier Than a Virus.” “What does this mean?” an Associated Press reporter superfluously asked Peter Staley. The newspapers quoted him faithfully: “We’re saying if you mess with

Bill Clinton, avowed champion of gay people, had virtually killed the same-sex marriage movement.

“New York Court Defines Family to Include Homosexual Couples,” the stunned editors of the New York Times announced when the case was settled in 1989.

There she met Evan Wolfson. He convinced her that marriage would be the surest shield against society’s contemptuous abuse of those in same-sex relationships.

To his credit, President Clinton never wavered in his support of Achtenberg, and she was confirmed.